Balancing images of potential-field data

Abstract

Horizontal and vertical gradients, and filters based on them (such as the analytic signal), are used routinely to enhance detail in aeromagnetic data. However, when the data contain anomalies with a large range of amplitudes, the filtered data also will contain large and small amplitude responses, making the latter hard to see. This study suggests balancing the analytic signal amplitude (sometimes called the total gradient) by the use of its orthogonal Hilbert transforms, and shows that the balanced profile curvature can be an effective method of enhancing potential-field data. Source code is available from the author on request.